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KSA, France discuss cooperation in nuclear energy

A Saudi-French joint technical committee met at the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KACARE) for the second time recently to discuss cooperation regarding the ongoing civil nuclear program in the Kingdom.
The first joint technical committee meeting was held last year in France after the two countries reached an agreement on the peaceful use of atomic energy.
The agenda of bilateral discussion included means of strengthening mutual cooperation in the field of research, development and innovation in nuclear energy, human capabilities training and education, nuclear organisational programming, and nuclear waste management, according to a KACARE spokesperson.
"It has been agreed that a number of Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) should be developed relating to these issues at the present time, so that they may be signed in the near future," he said.
Earlier, KACARE Vice-President Waleed Hussein Abulfaraj received in his office Laurent Michel, director-general for energy and climate change at the French Ministry of Environment. Bertrand Bzansno, the French ambassador in Riyadh, attended the opening session of the meeting.
Those attended included representatives from the atomic sector, representatives of the research, development and innovation sector, along with representatives of legal and international cooperation matters from the Kingdom. From the French side, participants included representatives from the Environment Ministry, Foreign Ministry, the French Embassy in Riyadh, Institute of Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety, National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management and the International Institute for Nuclear Energy.
At the conclusion of the meeting, the French side welcomed the idea of hosting the 3rd meeting of the technical committee in Paris.
Notably, the Kingdom signed an agreement with France in 2011 with the latter offering atomic know-how and training for local staff as it seeks to meet growing demand for electricity by accelerating the implementation of domestic atomic and renewable energy projects.

For the first time a supercomputer based in the Middle East has entered the top ten list of the most powerful computers on the planet.

The Shaheen II is based at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust) in Saudi Arabia.

The Cray XC40 computer is the seventh most powerful machine in the world, said the Top 500 organisation that monitors high-performance machines.

China's Tianhe-2 retained its position at the top of the supercomputer list.

Weather models

Shaheen II's place on the list was revealed in the Top 500's latest release of its biannual rankings.

The Shaheen (Peregrine Falcon) II has a peak number-crunching capacity of 5.536 petaflops making it, said the Top 500, "the highest-ranked Middle East system in the 22-year history of the list and the first to crack the Top 10".

Kaust has spent about $80m (£51m) buying, installing and operating the Cray machine which is about 25 times more powerful than the machine it is replacing.

The machine uses 200,000 processors arranged in more than 6,000 nodes, has 17.6 petabytes of storage and 790 terabytes of main memory. By contrast, China's Tianhe-2 has a peak processing ability of 33.86 petaflops spread across 16,000 nodes.

A petaflop is equal to about one quadrillion calculations per second. One estimate suggests it would take a human about 32,000,000 years to complete the same task.

The machine, based in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia is being used for research projects modelling turbulence in engines, atmospheric dynamics, and renewable energy grids.

Industrial partners of Kaust are also planning to use it to help refine their search for minerals and fossil fuels and in the processing of raw materials.

In a blog entry detailing the latest list, the Top 500 organisation said the rate of growth in global computing power was slowing down. This was because relatively few new massive supercomputers had been switched on in the last few years. Many of those at the top of the list were installed and first operated in 2011 and 2012, it said.

BBC News

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Quote 2 :

Shaheen-Cray XC40 supercomputer arrives at KAUST

Apr 16, 2015

“The new Cray XC40 system is going to be much more broadly useable,” said Greg Newby, Manager of KAUST’s Supercomputing Laboratory. This was one of the University’s main requirements when selecting a new system. Currently, around 20-25% of the University’s faculty, as well as students, postdocs, researchers and external collaborators use the supercomputing resources on campus. This very active, capable and computationally savvy group always looks forward to the next innovative technology.

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Why Scientists Use Supercomputers?

A concrete example would be modeling the movements of the wind. Scientists may be interested in predicting how the wind will transport sand and dust across the desert into the Red Sea. This information may be of interest to those developing solar cells -- where dust is a major factor. Modeling and predicting the movements of the wind is complicated. So computing the wind at high resolution requires the use of a supercomputer – especially if we’re looking at an entire region. What a system like Shaheen-Cray XC40 allows scientists to do is to divide the region in X and Y coordinates and thus forming a grid system. Those grid cells could, for example, represent one-kilometer square. Each vertical layer can then be separated into units such as 100 meters of height, or 30 millibars of atmospheric pressure, creating a 3D grid.

The next step would be to input some initial conditions, set certain assumptions, and then instruct the supercomputer to run the simulation. The system will analyze the wind in a particular cell and then advance the clock, to say a fraction of a second, to the next cell in order to determine how the wind’s movements have evolved – so on until the next computation. Each processor node handles the computation for a different cell. So the supercomputer essentially divides the problem into grids handling different computational elements.

“That’s what makes a problem good for supercomputing. If you can take the problem and divide it into component parts and then spread out those component parts to the different computational processors. Kind of similar to a car engine that has 6 or 8 pistons, they’re all working together.” as Newby describes.

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Advanced Micro Devices

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or AMD is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Sunnyvale, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for commercial and consumer markets. Its main products include microprocessors, motherboard chipsets, embedded processors and graphics processors for servers, workstations and personal computers, and embedded systems applications.

AMD is the second-largest global supplier of microprocessors based on the x86 architecture (behind Intel) and also one of the largest suppliers of graphics processing units. It also owns 8.6% of Spansion, a supplier of non-volatile flash memory.

AMD is the only significant rival to Intel in the central processor (CPU) market for (x86 based) personal computers. Together they held 99.1 percent (Intel 80.3%, AMD 18.8%) of the CPUs sold for quarter three of 2011. Since acquiring ATI in 2006, AMD and its competitor Nvidia have dominated the discrete graphics processor unit (GPU) market, together making up virtually 100% of the market.

Mubadala Development has finalised a deal with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) to take control of its semiconductor manufacturing operations and raise the state-owned firm's stake in the company.

Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), a unit of Mubadala, is now a 66 per cent owner of The Foundry Company, which manufactures microchips for AMD.

Mubadala also raised its stake substantially with an investment of US $ 125 million (Dh 459.1 m) in AMD, which has been hard hit by the drop in demand for computers. AMD's stock price has dropped 71 per cent since June.

« The business case has not changed. This is a long-term investment in a cyclical industry », said Waleed al Muhairi, the chief operating officer at Mubadala who was also named to the AMD board.

The Foundry Company's board will be chaired by Hector Ruiz, AMD's former chairman. The Foundry Company is only a temporary name and the company is expected to launch with a new name and visual identity later this week.

« AMD and its committed partners have conceived two strong industry-leading companies capable of charting future courses that will dramatically improve the technology industry », said Dirk Meyer, the chief executive of AMD.

Under the deal, ATIC paid US $ 2.1 billion for a 65.8 per cent stake of The Foundry Company. Of that investment, US $ 700 m went directly to AMD, which will hold the remaining stake.

AMD is seeking to narrow the company's focus and cut costs in the face of fierce competition from the market leader, Intel. For Mubadala, the deal represents an opportunity to develop one it its core business segments under the Government's plan to diversify the emirate's economy away from oil.

Mubadala's investments are typically strategic and the company hopes to use its interest in The Foundry Company to bring microchip manufacturing facilities which are among the world's most advanced industrial infrastructure to Abu Dhabi.

This means that paper losses on its original AMD investment standing now at more than US $ 500 m are unlikely to be realised, with Mubadala looking to hold its shares in the US company through the global economic crisis.

Like most major US companies, AMD's stock price has been in dramatic decline. A worldwide economic slowdown is expected to stunt the growth in demand for new personal computers containing the company's chips; some analysts believe overall demand could drop.

AMD produces central processing units (CPUs) and video cards for use in personal computers and corporate servers. The Foundry Company, which will acquire all of AMD's manufacturing assets, will expand its capacity to become a contract manufacturer for other companies, such as makers of consumer electronics and mobile phones.

ATIC said it would invest up to US $ 6 bn to expand and diversify the capacity of the new company.

At the same time as the manufacturing tie-up, Mubadala boosted its 8.1 per cent holding in AMD acquired for US $ 622 m last year to over 16 per cent. Mubadala has an option to raise it further to 19.6 per cent.

The price of the new shares and warrants was negotiated down to US $ 125 m in December after AMD's stock price fell. Mr. al Muhairi said the price used for the latest transaction was based on a complex formula, but would be close to AMD's Monday close at US $ 2.01 per share.

AMD, a distant runner-up to Intel in the microprocessor business, won approval from shareholders last month to spin off its two chip-making plants as it faced its fourth annual loss this year.

In January, the company reported a US $ 1.42 bn fourth-quarter loss, hurt by a rapidly deteriorating environment for computer sales as well as big write-offs.

Mr. al Muhairi was upbeat about the long-term prospects. "Now is a down point in the cycle, he said. "That is when you invest in capacity, so when the market picks up you can start producing. The trajectory of the semiconductor business is going up.

Chartered Semiconductor was created in 1987 as a venture that included Singapore Technologies Engineering Ltd. Yet, it was not until 2000 that ST Engineering (Singapore Technologies Semiconductors), a wholly owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings wholly acquired Chartered.

Prior to 2010, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (abbreviated CSM) was the world's third largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry, with its headquarters and main operations located in the Woodlands Industrial Park, Kranji Singapore. The company was listed on the Singapore Exchange under the trading symbol of CHARTERED, as well as on NASDAQ (CHRT), until its buyout.

Chartered provides comprehensive wafer fabrication services and technologies to semiconductor suppliers and systems companies. Chartered's customer base is primarily high-growth, technologically advanced companies operating in the communication, computer and consumer sectors. It does not provide design services and works from customers' designs to produce communications chips.

Besides its own fabs, Chartered operates joint venture facilities with other firms, it offers chip assembly and test services through sister firm STATS ChipPAC. Chartered owns 6 fabrication facilities, all of which are located in Singapore, including the newest, Chartered's first 300-mm facility which started commercial shipment in June 2005.

The other major semiconductor foundries include TSMC and UMC, Taiwanese-based companies, which are primarily Chartered's main competitors.

In 2006 AMD announced that it will manufacture CPUs with Chartered on a 65 nanometer process. It also has alliances with IBM, Infineon, Samsung and Agere Systems.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Chartered combine under one brand to compete for market leadership as a full-service foundry company

Sunnyvale, Calif. - January 13, 2010 - GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced it has officially integrated operations with Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing started functioning as one company under the GLOBALFOUNDRIES brand. The announcement marks the emergence of the new GLOBALFOUNDRIES-the world's first full-service semiconductor foundry with a truly global manufacturing and technology footprint across Asia, Europe and the United States.

"As the world's leading chip design companies face increasing pressure to push the boundaries of innovation, they need a full-service foundry partner with the ability to invest and sustain an aggressive leading-edge technology roadmap while offering a full breadth of services," said Doug Grose, chief executive officer of GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "Thanks to the vision of our investors and months of dedicated work by teams across the globe, we have now created a new global company that leads the foundry market in advanced technology with unparalleled proximity to our customers and access to the world's best talent."

The combined company employs approximately 10,000 people around the world, anchored by headquarters in Silicon Valley and advanced manufacturing operations in Singapore; Dresden, Germany; and a new leading-edge fab under construction in Saratoga County, New York. These sites are supported by a global network of R & D, design enablement, and customer support in Singapore, China, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

The new GLOBALFOUNDRIES immediately takes its position as one of the top semiconductor foundries in the world, with 2009 revenues to date for GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Chartered in excess of $ 2 billion. GLOBALFOUNDRIES launches with more than 150 customers across the semiconductor ecosystem, with plans to deepen existing relationships and to aggressively pursue new customers. Current customers include many of the world's top fabless and fab-lite companies, such as AMD, Qualcomm, STMicro and IBM.

"The entire premise of the foundry business is changing," said Dan Hutcheson, CEO of VLSI Research. "Foundry customers have made it clear that they are looking for deep collaboration with their foundry partners as opposed to a contract manufacturing service. With its history as part of a top Integrated Device Manufacturer (IDM) operating at the leading edge of technology, GLOBALFOUNDRIES is well positioned to drive fundamental transformation in the foundry business model."

GLOBALFOUNDRIES currently has five 200 mm fabs and one 300 mm fab in Singapore, as well as one leading-edge 300 mm fab complex in Dresden, Germany. To meet the demands of a growing customer base, the company has an aggressive capacity build-out plan, including expansion of Fab 1 in Dresden and Fab 7 in Singapore, as well as construction of a new leading-edge 300 mm facility in Saratoga County, New York. The New York facility, which will be renamed as Fab 8, is on track to begin ramping initial production in 2012.

With these plans in place, global leading-edge capacity is expected to expand to 1.6 million 300 mm wafers annually by 2014. This will be supplemented by 2.2 million 200 mm wafers annually, offering customers the full spectrum of foundry technology from mainstream to the leading edge, for a total of 5.8 million 200mm equivalents.

"Until now, the world's largest fabless, fablite and integrated manufacturers have had no real alternative for an end-to-end manufacturing partner," said Chia Song Hwee, chief operating officer of GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "This new company has an incredible opportunity in front of us to not just offer an alternative, but become the preferred supplier for many of the world's top chip design companies. With advanced technology leadership, an aggressive capacity roadmap and a robust set of mainstream technologies and foundry services we are well equipped to compete and win against any other foundry in the industry."

The new GLOBALFOUNDRIES brings a broad array of leading edge technology capabilities and services to market. The company is the foundry industry leader in time-to-volume on 40/45 nm technology and expects to repeat this accomplishment with 32 nm and "Gate First" High-K Metal Gate technology. The company embraces a collaborative R & D approach that also extends to packaging, IP solutions, and design enablement, built on what the company calls its "Virtual IDM" approach.

Professional

Abu Dhabi's ATIC has filed an application with Germany's cartel office to take over Globalfoundries, a contract chipmaking venture it established with Advanced Micro Devices last year.

The Advanced Technology Investment Co (ATIC) filed the application on Jan 12 according to the cartel office website.

ATIC said: "This action is simply consistent with the long announced plan for AMD to gradually become fab less, which was one of the key strategies behind the creation of Globalfoundries."

"Fab less" is the industry term used when semiconductor makers design their own products but outsource their manufacture.

AMD spun off its semiconductor manufacturing arm into the joint venture GlobalFoundries, which started operations in March 2009 and has a plant in Dresden, in eastern Germany, as well as Saratoga, New York.

Chief Executive Doug Grose told Reuters last week that AMD will reduce its stake in the company over time and continue to focus on chip design.

ATIC invested $2.1 billion for a 65.8 percent stake of the venture. Of that, $700 million went directly to AMD, which holds the remaining stake.

AMD is due to report on its fourth quarter earnings on Jan 21.

Reuters

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Quote 10 :

Global Foundries announces ambitious expansion plans

Published on 2nd June 2010 by Richard Swinburne

COMPUTEX 2010 Global Foundries, the manufacturing company formed when AMD decided to become purely a chip design outfit, this morning announced an ambitious program of upgrades to its factories.

It will increase both the scale and complexity of its fabrication plants (fabs for short), meaning companies which don't own their own plants - increasingly common in the high-tech world - have access to better and better manufacturing processes for their wares.

With a current global capacity of 110,000 300 mm wafers per month split between Fab 1 in Germany and Fab 7 in Singapore, the addition of the new Fab 8 in New York will bring an extra 42,000 wafers when it finished in 2012. This will further increase with the construction of an additional cleanroom Fab 1 Germany making it the largest in Europe something Global Foundries classes as its Gigalab. The extra 110,000 sq foot of space in clean room adds 25 per cent capacity, increasing output from 60,000 to 80,000 wafers a month by mid-2011. The Dresden lab is still focused on 40 and 45 nm process manufacturing, moving to 28 nm by next year. The advantage of extra production volume means that Global Foundaries can learn faster to improve yields.

Despite the fact its not even finished yet, expansion of Fab 8 in New York will also take place in phase of its construction, adding 40% more cleanroom space and focusing on 28 nm production, before moving to 22/20 nm and below, ultimately increasing production output to 60,000 wafers a month by 2013.

At its Computex press conference, Global Foundries stated that its new High-k metal gate techniques on 32 nm and 28 nm are in the early introduction phase, but this process was also design compatible with 45/40 nm production and accounts for a 10-15 per cent die size reduction and transistor performance equal to Intel (although it's arguably coming two years behind Intel).

Global Foundries continues to use volume immersion lithography and double patterning with 32 nm and will move to Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV) in 2011 with mask and resist technique.

Abu Dhabi, 8 August 2010: The Al Nokhba internship at GLOBALFOUNDRIES has drawn to a close in Dresden, Germany with a graduation ceremony to mark the achievements of the 60 interns who participated in the program. During the ceremony interns were praised for their continued dedication and achievement and presented their project work to assembled dignitaries, student mentors and peers. The collaborative Al Nokhba internship developed in partnership between Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC), The Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) and GLOBALFOUNDRIES, aims to give the next generation of Emirati engineers hands-on work experience in the field of microelectronics.

Over the course of the last seven weeks, the 30 men and 30 women, all Emirati science and engineering undergraduates, have worked alongside some of the worlds leading advanced technology experts at the GLOBALFOUNDRIES FAB in Dresden, overseeing the manufacture of the 300mm wafer semiconductors that form the basis of modern electronic and electrical equipment. Students have participated in a full program of lectures and seminars, alongside handson experience in the clean rooms and labs, culminating in the final projects presented at the graduation ceremony.

Director General of ADEC H.E. Dr. Mugheer Khamis Al Khaili said: “We are proud of our students for their dedication to this program, and thank our partners for investing their time and resources to support the academic and career development of young nationals. Partnering with industries to promote hands-on learning and practical experience is an essential component of Abu Dhabi’s Higher Education Strategy to develop our students’ skill set and knowledge so they can compete in a global workforce, and contribute to the creation of an innovation-based, knowledgeproducing society in Abu Dhabi. We look forward to continue to working with ATIC and GLOBALFOUNDRIES to cultivate a passion for technological development and innovation in our students.”

Ibrahim Ajami, CEO of ATIC said: “Collaborative opportunities such as the Al Nokhba Internship at GLOBALFOUNDRIES are at the very heart of ATIC’s work in the area of human capital development. We are committed to providing new opportunities aimed at inspiring and engaging the next generation of Emirati talent that will drive the development of Abu Dhabi as a hub for leading-edge semiconductor and the advanced technology sector and in so doing fuel the delivery of the future vision of Abu Dhabi. The successful graduation of the interns today is testament to their continued hard work, commitment and development as the engineering minds of the future.”

"I'm very pleased with the tremendous experience, the 60 students had in the second Abu Dhabi summer internship program in Dresden," said Doug Grose, CEO, GLOBALOUNDRIES. "This internship is part of a comprehensive program which will help to develop top talent in support a future semiconductor eco-system in Abu Dhabi. Through providing access to GLOBALFOUNDRIES FAB 1, Europe's most advanced wafer FAB, combined with the educational and industry resources of Silicon Saxony, we have provided participants with a thorough overview of what it means to participate and compete in our global industry."

Present at the graduation ceremony event were representatives from both the United Arab Emirates and Germany, including Dr. Johannes Beermann, Chief of the State Chancellery and Minister of State for Federal Affairs, Saxony and Ms Nabila Al Shamsi, Second Secretary at the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, Germany. Also in attendance were Ms Susanne Jokisch, representing the Cultural Affairs office of the German Embassy to the United Arab Emirates and HE Mohammad Salam Al Dhaheri, Executive Director of School Operations Sector at ADEC, Mrs. Mona Majed Al Mansouri, Division Manager of Guidance and Scholarship at ADEC, Professors Melhorn, Bartha and Kucher, senior faculty members from the Technical University of Dresden, Germany alongside representatives from the local R&D community.

The Al Nokhba internship builds on ATIC’s central aim of promoting Abu Dhabi’s strategic development of, and investment in, advanced technologies and semiconductors by supporting the development of human capital that will drive the future of the industry and provide UAE nationals with world-class learning opportunities. Collaboration between ATIC and GLOBALFOUNDRIES alongside the Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC), is aligned with the commitment of the Higher Education Strategy to support the development of a workforce equipped with the skills and knowledge for success. In its next round, the Al Nokhba internship will be expanded to offer interns the opportunity to work at the GLOBALFOUNDRIES FAB in Singapore.

DRESDEN : When Mohammed al Merri found out he had been accepted to study at Globalfoundries, he was proud to become part of "The Elite". The recent electrical engineering graduate from Abu Dhabi's Higher College of Technology had long dreamt of pursuing a career in technology. Now, with Abu Dhabi investing heavily in the semiconductor industry, the young Emirati has earned the opportunity of a lifetime - to become part of "Al Nokhba", which is Arabic for "The Elite".

The programme, run at the Globalfoundries campus in Dresden, gives the students a crash course in the elemental physics behind semiconductors and the theory of designing microchips plus the chance to follow assigned mentors to perform tasks in the foundry's clean room. "For me, I'm studying something that is very futuristic," said Mr al Merri. "It's a very amazing experience." He is one of 60 students - half of whom are women - invited by Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC)and Globalfoundries to take part in an intensive seven-week internship designed to introduce them to the world of semiconductors and hopefully foster the people who will take the reins in running Abu Dhabi's foundry.

"When I told my professors that I was going to work at a foundry, they said that this is an opportunity that engineering students don't often get," said Ammar al Marzouqi, a third-year computer engineering student from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We're getting to look at what's actually being produced now and what the research and development teams are trying to work on for the future."

It also opens the door for young Arab females to become trained as semiconductor engineers, a field that generally does not attract a lot of women. "It's great that females from the UAE have entered this industry and that the country is looking carefully for its plan for the future," said Ebtesam al Mazrooei, a masters communications engineering student at United Arab Emirates University. "There's a lot of information coming at you for the first two weeks but once you enter and see the manufacturing of wafers in the clean room, it is really an amazing experience."

Hamda al Shehhi, a third-year chemical engineering student at the same university, said the experience had given her a new "plan for the rest of her life". "It was difficult for me at the beginning because I'm not trained in electrical engineering, but when I came to Dresden, I feel that this is something I can be good at," Ms al Shehhi said.

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Quote 13 :

Abu Dhabi eyes tech future

Capital seeks to play a key role in research and development in bid to drive an innovation-based economy and make education affordable and accessible

- By Ibrahim Ajami, Special to Gulf News

Published: 00:00 July 21, 2010

Double-dip recession or not, global consumers are retaining a crush on their personal electronic goods and super smart mobile devices.

Even in tough economic times, the confluence of advances in computing, communications, mobile handsets, digital content and growing worldwide adoption of the internet is fuelling new purchases and creating a mobile revolution.

Not surprisingly, this consumption is becoming more Asia-centric. While China's gross domestic product constitutes roughly 60 per cent of the GDP of the US, China already consumes more electronics than the US, attributable to China's large middle-class of 400 million citizens.

Powering each of these electronic devices is a semiconductor chip, the "brain" that manages performance of each electronic good whether it's a laptop, mobile phone, or even your new washing machine or automobile.

Semiconductors are synonymous with innovation and productivity. Over the past 50 years, the semiconductor industry has transformed our way of life through intense innovation. We have leapfrogged from the invention of mainframe computers in the 1960s to the ubiquity of personal computers in the 1980s to the internet in the 1990s.

Mobile revolution

Now the mobile revolution is at hand: over one billion units sold with another nine billion on the way, all connected over wireless broadband links to millions of data servers via the "cloud," delivering content and services anytime, anywhere.

The more mobile, more integrated, more Asia-centric, more digital world has significant implications for us in Abu Dhabi. Why? Because Abu Dhabi is investing in the development and manufacturing of this growing and influential sector.

In 2008, Abu Dhabi decided to make a substantial investment in semiconductor manufacturing. It is one of the most technologically complex and sophisticated industries on earth. Over two billion transistors can fit on a microchip the size of your fingernail.

No other industry on earth doubles its productivity with little additional cost to consumers. Imagine an automobile coming to market using half the gasoline, giving you twice the mileage, with increased speed at a lower cost every two years.

If you look at Taiwan, Singapore or high-tech clusters like Saxony in Germany or Silicon Valley, you can see what an advanced technology network of talent and technology can do to create job growth and economic transformation. This investment is fully in line with Abu Dhabi's 2030 vision to diversify our economy over the next two decades. The semiconductor industry is also as global as any industry can get.

To date, the Advanced Technology Investment Company of Abu Dhabi has committed over $10 billion to our portfolio company, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, rapidly making it one of the largest semiconductor manufacturing companies on earth. In addition to facilities in Singapore, Dresden and upstate New York, we announced on June 1 our intention to create an advanced technology ecosystem in Abu Dhabi.

Our goal is to be more integrated with leading technology clusters. But you cannot create a vibrant technology cluster in Abu Dhabi without investing in research and development. You need the collaboration of academic institutions and internationally recognised research entities to bring this innovation to life here in Abu Dhabi. We need new students, teachers and academia to collaborate on innovation with industry leaders. That is what has worked so well in other parts of the world.

That is why the Abu Dhabi Education Council's (ADEC) recent announcement unveiling its higher education strategy is so significant. The goals are a) to raise the quality of Abu Dhabi's higher education to international levels; b) to align education with Abu Dhabi's economic, social and cultural needs; c) to build and maintain a research ecosystem to drive an innovation-based economy; and d) to make education affordable and accessible.

By 2018, the annual spend on this strategy will be Dh4.9 billion, much of it directed at research and development. This will elevate Abu Dhabi's R&D expenditure to around 0.75 per cent of GDP, approaching advanced world levels which range from 1.5 per cent of GDP to just over four per cent of GDP.

Implementation plan

This will not only be essential to semiconductors and advanced technology, but will drive innovation in aerospace, health care, and renewable energy, among other key pillars of the 2030 diversification strategy.

ADEC will now begin putting in place an implementation plan and we will support them by pulling in our global network of partners to realise a strong semiconductor R&D presence in Abu Dhabi.

The ADEC announcement came on the heels of a major semiconductor industry conference ATIC hosted in Abu Dhabi. In May, over sixty representatives of the world's most respected research institutions, in conjunction with the Semiconductor Research Corporation and the National Science Foundation, came to the Emirate to discuss the major research challenges facing the semiconductor industry.

We shared ideas but as importantly, began to gain their enthusiasm for the journey ahead and how Abu Dhabi can play a key role in their future research and development efforts. It is all part of an effort to shape our "human capital" here in Abu Dhabi.

Abu Dhabi's 2030 vision and its investments in the future have put the us on the path toward bringing that innovation home. One day, the device in your hand will have components in it that are designed in the US, developed and manufactured in Abu Dhabi, assembled in Singapore, and packaged in China. We have a long journey ahead of us, but we are investing in the critical components to make it a reality here in Abu Dhabi.

The writer is the Chief Executive Officer of the Advanced Technology Investment Company

The Abu Dhabi Government-owned Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) is to spend between US$6 billion and $7bn building its microchip manufacturing plant in the emirate. The move is part of the company's efforts to tap into rising demand for semiconductors. News of the multibillion-dollar price tag comes just four months after the company selected a site for the plant near Abu Dhabi International Airport, which will become the first microchip factory in the Middle East when it begins production in 2015.

"$6bn to $7bn is the estimated cost of what it will take to build a state of the art fabricating facility anywhere in the world," said a spokesman for ATIC. ATIC's planned spending on the plant comes on top of the $3.6bn the company has pledged to expand the capacity of its Globalfoundries microchip business. That investment will be divided between Globalfoundries chip-making plants in Germany and the US. "[About] $1.6bn of that will be in Dresden, the other $2bn will be in New York," the spokesman said.

In March, ATIC paid its US counterpart Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) $2.1bn for a 65.8 per cent stake in Globalfoundries. While ATIC's stake has since grown to 73 per cent since March, the spokesman said it did not intend to take 100 per cent ownership of Globalfoundaries. "Every new dollar we invest in Globalfoundries will, by evolution, reduce the percentage of what [AMD] owns in it. The intention is to continue to have a long partnership with AMD and not buy [Globalfoundries] outright. It's not our intention to buy their share completely," he said.

ATIC plans to broaden its investment focus next year. "Right now, the focus is on Globalfoundries. As you look at 2011, you will see that perspective start to broaden. You'll see complementary kinds of investments in the technology ecosystem in 2011 and beyond," the spokesman said. He said design companies, intellectual property companies and those that serve chip-makingplants were possible investment targets.

ATIC said the Abu Dhabi plant would "be part of the Globalfoundries network" but added that ATIC may provide auxiliary services for the facility. The launch of a factory will propel the UAE capital on to the world stage of technological development, the spokesman said. "It's our strong belief that Abu Dhabi will be a hub as part of the global technology network," he said, pointing to the increasing demand for high-tech products from the emerging markets in the Gulf and India.

Rising demand in the sector means the semiconductor foundry industry will be worth $26.8bn this year, said the technology research firm IC Insights. Building a talent base in the UAE will be essential to the successful operation of a chip-making plant, which would typically employ 1,000 to 1,500 employees, ATIC said. The talent gap is a "huge concern" in the launch of high-tech ventures such as the Abu Dhabi microchip plant, said Ranjit Rajan, the research director at IDC Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

"One of the biggest concerns with establishing high-tech manufacturing in general is lack of skills. In spite of all the Government has invested in education, it takes time for this to yield results," he said. Mr Rajan said there were several reasons behind ATIC's decision to build a new plant in Abu Dhabi. One factor was the geographical position of the country between the markets in the East and West. Another was the expected increase in demand for microchips. A third was that the semiconductor business was not as labour intensive as other parts of the technology manufacturing industry, where much of the production has been outsourced to cheaper labour markets.

"The UAE can't compete there, so it's looking at areas that are not labour intensive but are technology intensive," , Mr Rajan said. He said the semiconductor business suited Abu Dhabi as it "requires a lot of investment, and not everyone can do that".

When AMD originally spun off its foundry business in 2008, the resulting Foundry Company (as it was called back then) was 55.6% ATIC owned and 44.4% AMD owned. Since then the Foundry Company has been rebranded Global Foundries and has been on a march towards independence. Plans for additional fabs and the acquisition of Chartered Semiconductor both strengthened GF as a player in the foundry space. A closer relationship with ARM and its partners has also been a key element of GF's strategy.

AMD has been divesting itself from Global Foundries over the past few years and today announced that it has aquired the remaining shares of the company from AMD (approximately 14% of the company). Global Foundries is now completely independent of AMD, and AMD is now a regular partner/customer of GF's.

...

ATIC CEO ‘Ibrahim Ajami’ presents

Semiconductors : The Silver Lining

Quote 16 :

ATIC and GLOBALFOUNDRIES announce new leadership to drive continued investment through 2012

DRESDEN, GERMANY: June 16, 2011. As part of a plan to continue significant investments in technology, talent and manufacturing capacity over the next 18 months, the board of directors of GLOBALFOUNDRIES - along with its majority shareholder, the Advanced Technology Investment Company - announced today it has appointed new leadership to run the company.

Semiconductor industry veteran Ajit Manocha has been appointed interim Chief Executive Officer of GLOBALFOUNDRIES. James A. Norling will serve as Executive Chairman and Ibrahim Ajami will serve as Vice Chairman of the GLOBALFOUNDRIES board of directors. All appointments are effective immediately.

"GLOBALFOUNDRIES is just two years old, but in that short time customers have embraced what it represents to the market," said Norling. "At the same time, customers are asking us for more capacity, faster technology delivery and greater agility. The Board intends for this new management team to meet those customer needs while improving operational performance."

"GLOBALFOUNDRIES, with the continuous support of ATIC, is in the middle of an intense, competitive ramp-up of manufacturing capacity and technology development," said Ajami, who will also remain CEO of ATIC. Under this new leadership team, investment in GLOBALFOUNDRIES will double over the next 18 months."

Through end of May 2011, ATIC had invested over $6 billion, to acquire the former manufacturing assets of Advanced Micro Devices in Dresden, Germany ($2.1 billion in March 2009) and the assets of Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing of Singapore ($3.1 billion in December 2009) as well as an estimated $1 billion to construct a new fabrication facility in upstate New York. Through the end of 2012, ATIC will invest another approximately $6 billion in manufacturing capacity in Dresden, Singapore and New York with initial construction to begin in Abu Dhabi.

Doug Grose, who has served as CEO of GLOBALFOUNDRIES since its inception, will transition to become senior advisor to GLOBALFOUNDRIES and ATIC with a focus on technology leadership and ensuring delivery of next generation technologies for competitive differentiation. Chia Song Hwee, Chief Operating Officer, will remain with the company in that position until August 2011, when he will return to be part of Singapore's business future.

"Doug Grose and Chia Song Hwee formed the foundation of GLOBALFOUNDRIES, bringing together the world's leading-edge manufacturing technology with the heritage of a full-service foundry partner," said Norling. "This new leadership team will build on that foundation, as we increase investment in technology, capacity and talent while optimizing performance."

Norling also said an executive search for a permanent CEO has already begun. Manocha's focus in the short-term is to work closely with top management and talent of the company to optimize performance, continue progress on the customer and technology roadmap, and continue the efficient ramp of capacity in Dresden and New York.

Manocha is a veteran semiconductor industry executive with more than 30 years of global expertise in operations, general management, and manufacturing. Having recently served as an advisor to ATIC, Manocha brings a wealth of talent, experience and leadership ability to GLOBALFOUNDRIES at a critical time in the company's development. Manocha was previously Executive Vice President of Worldwide Operations at Spansion. Prior to Spansion, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Manufacturing Officer at NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductors), where he was responsible for worldwide IC manufacturing, supply chain management and purchasing for the semiconductor division. Manocha held senior executive and management positions at AT&T Microelectronics and AT&T Bell Laboratories, and began his career as a research scientist and was granted over a dozen U.S. and international patents for several novel inventions in the field of technology for microelectronics.

Norling is the former Chairman of Chartered Semiconductor and also served as interim CEO of that company in 2002. He has over three decades of working experience in the electronics industry, with global breadth and deep customer relationships. Norling was with Motorola Inc. from 1965 to 2000 holding various positions, including President of the Semiconductor Products Sector for seven years, from 1986 to 1993. He was also president of the Europe, Middle East and Africa region in 1993, deputy to the chief executive officer in 1998 and president of the Personal Communications Sector from 1999 until 2000, when he retired from Motorola. In 2001, he joined the board of Chartered Semiconductor.

Ajami has been CEO of ATIC since November 2008, leading the investment company through strategic acquisitions of semiconductor manufacturing assets and the creation of GLOBALFOUNDRIES as well as other investments in innovative start-up companies such as Calxeda. Ajami brings strong customer and partner relationships to GLOBALFOUNDRIES with a focus on investment discipline. He joined ATIC from Mubadala Development Company, where he was Associate Director of Acquisitions and led the initial investment in AMD in 2007. Prior to Mubadala, he held several positions in Silicon Valley, including Packard Bell/NEC.

About GLOBALFOUNDRIES

GLOBALFOUNDRIES is the world's first full-service semiconductor foundry with a truly global manufacturing and technology footprint. Launched in March 2009 through a partnership between AMD [NYSE: AMD] and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), GLOBALFOUNDRIES provides a unique combination of advanced technology, manufacturing excellence and global operations. With the integration of Chartered in January 2010, GLOBALFOUNDRIES significantly expanded its capacity and ability to provide best-in-class foundry services from mainstream to the leading edge. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is headquartered in Silicon Valley with manufacturing operations in Singapore, Germany, and a new leading-edge fab under construction in Saratoga County, New York. These sites are supported by a global network of R&D, design enablement, and customer support in Singapore, China, Taiwan, Japan, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

About ATIC

The Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) was created in 2008. A technology investment company wholly owned by the Mubadala Development Company of Abu Dhabi, ATIC is focused on making significant investments in the advanced technology sector, both locally and internationally. Its mandate is to generate returns that deliver long-term benefits to the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

ATIC seeks to leverage the unique advantages it enjoys as an investor from the Emirate of Abu Dhabi to identify and realize long-term investment opportunities in the highly competitive and capital-intensive advanced technology sector. These advantages include significant and reliable capital, a patient investment philosophy, and a subsequently long-term investment horizon

Not long after Tom Caulfield, general manager of Globalfoundries’ Fab 8 — the largest silicon foundry in the United States — came into the conference room and sat down, he looked over at me and said, “You have a tick crawling on your shoulder.”

He made as if to do something about it, but Jason Gorss, the company’s PR manager and a giant of man, was closer at hand. He leaped up, grabbed a tissue from a nearby table, snagged the pesky arachnid, and disposed of it.

“Spotting defects is what I do,” Caulfield continued, unperturbed.

That’s certainly one way of putting it. Another way is to say that, as general manager, he is responsible for the quality of output in one of the most advanced chip manufacturing facilities in the United States. Chips are made in batches on wafers, which are about a foot in diameter, and each wafer is like an unbelievably complicated cake that needs to be mixed and baked just right in order to maximize the number of working chips on it. Any little bug in the batter, and one or more chips won’t fire up. And some of those chips sell for hundreds of dollars apiece.

The tick came from an informal part of the plant tour, when a hard-hat worker named Ty drove us in a rugged construction vehicle into an area that used to be used by the federal government for rocket-fuel research. Among the weeds and shrubs now growing over everything, we saw half-buried bunkers with thick steel doors, gantries for holding burning rockets in place to see how much thrust they have, and 10-ton-capable cranes in small enclosed spaces. Wernher von Braun ran a team here after the United States poached him from the Nazis at the end of World War II. At the bottom of various stairways into the earth and under manhole covers in the middle of overgrown fields, concrete plugs hide whatever is buried there. Ticks wait on branch tips for the hapless passerby.

The first time I saw Fab 8, located in Saratoga County, New York, was when then-Governor David Paterson and former Governor George Pateki spaded a couple of symbolic shovels-full of dirt in the Luther Forest to break ground on July 24, 2009.

The second time I paid a visit, about a year later, I had a chance to stand on a 210,000-square-foot slab of concrete that would one day be manufacturing space. Other than a few 10-foot-diameter ventilation pipes laying around on the third floor waiting to be fitted, there wasn’t much else in that cement cathedral.

Last week, I got to see the entire original space enclosed and full of pricey machines — for epitaxy, deposition, etching, lithography, diffusion, implantation, and other processes — that perform sometimes hundreds of precision steps on wafers, small groups of which travel around together in Front Opening Unified Pods (FOUPs) on an overhead rail system that could come out of any science fiction movie. There are even upside-down switching yard/rail depots, where the FOUPs can hang out like bats sleeping in a cave, latched onto the ceiling so as to keep inventory-in-process off the valuable floor space. Some of the more impressive machines, supplied by companies like Applied Materials AMAT -0.48%, ASML, Tokyo Electron , and KLA Tencor, cost as much as $100 million each.

This factory — when yet more capacity is brought on line in the form of 90,000 square feet of adjacent space (where silicon qualification has already begun) and when some of a 200,000-square-foot space nearby that was going to be dedicated entirely to R&D is converted to production — will eventually be able to crank out 60,000 wafers per month.

Everything about this place is gigantic, from the fields of supply tanks full of different gases out back to the network of pipes that carry them into the plant. The clean space itself is the size of six football fields. In a parking lot nearby is an area employees refer to informally as Trailer City, where hundreds of contractors’ trucks sit when not otherwise occupied. Investment in Fab 8 — underwritten primarily by Mubadala Development Corporation, an arm of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi — is $10 billion and climbing. Construction is carried out by 20,000 workers, and the plant itself employs 3,000 people (in a business where, when you look down one of the long corridors in the clean room, you may see one or two people in bunny suits). And those $100 million photolithography machines? Fab 8 has dozens of them. At one point, while in full bunny regalia, I saw a half billion dollars of value sitting in a line about 40 feet long.

All this production is part of Globalfoundries’ program to build a worldwide manufacturing base large enough to justify its owners’ gargantuan investment. Included in this armada of assets are Advanced Micro Devices (AMD’s) former factory in Dresden, Germany, the mostly-Singapore-based fabs acquired when Globalfoundries bought Chartered Semiconductor, and the soon-to-be-brought-on-board plants in Essex Junction, Vermont, and East Fishkill, New York, now owned by IBM.

Part of Caulfield’s mandate is to fill and optimize these fabs. He believes that the demand for microprocessor chips of all types is there, what with the increase in data traffic driven by the Internet of Things (IoT), high-mobility devices like smartphones and tablets, and the build-out of computing infrastructure to accommodate all this traffic. And the group of manufacturers that can afford to build plants to supply microprocessors is only shrinking. The upfront investment is just too high. “It’s a big investment, and it never stops,” said Caulfield. Thus, it’s down to Globalfoundries, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Samsung, and Intel. Intel mostly makes its own chips, but has begun to do foundry work for others. TSMC is a pure foundry. Samsung is a hybrid, making some parts for itself and some for others.

The scale Caulfield is hoping to reach is based on TSMC, which claims to have a current annual capacity of 16.4 million eight-inch equivalent wafers. Globalfoundries doesn’t have to get that big, but it has to be somewhere in the ballpark. The IBM assets will definitely help. Not only does the deal come with two good fabs, a skilled workforce, and a decent customer base, but also outright ownership of ~10,000 patents. These last will help Globalfoundries in any cross-licensing agreements into which it may have to enter.

With respect to the IBM assets, Caulfield asserts that there is more demand than capacity for parts made in both Vermont and New York. He expects to increase revenue two ways: invest in the pinch points constricting production and moving some production elsewhere (likely Fab 8, which still has capacity coming online). The idea is that the fixed R&D and SG&A expenses of these plants can be spread over a larger revenue base, and they can make money for Globalfoundries even though they were unprofitable for IBM. So, Caulfield expects to keep the current IBM employees where they are, crank up the factories, and add production elsewhere. Given current losses at those plants and the $1.5 billion in cash that IBM transferred along with the hard assets, Globalfoundries has several years of running room to turn them around.

Currently, the generation of chips being used by most Globalfoundries customers has features 28nm wide. Although 20nm is theoretically next, Caulfield says it won’t be a high-volume node. 20nm requires a second pass to lay on circuits (adding expense), but does not have 3D (FinFET) features, which competitor Intel already has on its 22nm parts. Recently, Globalfoundries abandoned its own design for 14nm and entered into an alliance with Samsung to make use of Samsung’s 3D technology. The 14nm parts will issue from one Globalfoundries fab and three Samsung fabs for customers worldwide. Caulfield expects 14nm to be big.

Globalfoundries is still an alternative supplier for many of its customers, playing second fiddle to TSMC. Naturally, it has aspirations to turn the tables. And it may have a chance at 10nm, the last node to which the industry can see a clear, if difficult, path. When it entered into the agreement to acquire IBM’s fabs in the Northeast, Globalfoundries acquired the technology that will get it to 10nm.

At the moment, the company is involved in a project that has produced “integrated 10nm flow” at the Albany Nanotech Institute, which is run by IBM and funded by the large equipment suppliers. Soon, Caulfield said, the company will have that same 10nm flow — which involves almost 1,000 process steps — at Fab 8.

Forbes

...

Quote 18 :

IBM, GlobalFoundries sale expected to close July 1

Joseph Spector 9:43 p.m. EDT June 19, 2015

ALBANY – An agreement last October for IBM to pay GlobalFoundries to take over IBM's semiconductor manufacturing facilities in East Fishkill and Vermont for $1.5 billion is expected to close on July 1, sources familiar with the negotiations said.

The closing would end months of required regulatory approvals and likely move thousands of employees from IBM onto the GlobalFoundries' payroll at IBM plants in East Fishkill, Dutchess County, and Essex Junction, near Burlington, Vermont.

GlobalFoundries, which has an expanding chip plant in Malta, Saratoga County, announced last year that it would invest $10 billion over the next year in its facilities, mainly in New York. The Malta plant has 3,000 employees and another 3,000 construction workers, along with plans to add 600 staff employees by year's end, the company told the Times Union in Albany earlier this month.

New York has about 14,000 IBM employees, and half are in Dutchess County. IBM also has facilities in Endicott, Broome County, where it was founded, with about 700 workers.

There was no immediate comment from IBM and GlobalFoundries about the expected closing. In the past, the companies have said they anticipated the deal would close sometime this year.

Local and state officials, along with the companies themselves, have praised the sale as a way to preserve jobs and expand the companies' high-tech research and development in New York.

IBM, which is based in Armonk, is planning its own $3 billion investment in chip research — mainly at its research facility in Yorktown and at the SUNY Polytechnic Institute's Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany, where IBM is the major investor in a $4 billion research consortium.

"I think up and down the Hudson Valley, from Yorktown, through Fishkill, through Poughkeepsie, through Albany, up into Malta, this is great news for employment in New York state," IBM vice president John Kelly told reporters during a conference call when the deal was announced Oct. 20.

The deal comes as IBM is rumored to be facing another round of job cuts across the nation. But so far the IBM jobs in New York have largely been saved from the company's downsizing, in large part because of contractual obligations between the state and the company.

In January, GlobalFoundries confirmed that the company has offered jobs to all the IBM workers that are part of the sale. It's been unclear how many offers went out.

Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor, R-East Fishkill, said the sale will be a positive step for local IBM workers, who have faced years of downsizing.

"There is some enthusiasm and optimism and some hope there. Where with IBM it was just watching the jobs and the optimism of the employees whither away," Lalor said.

In February 2014, IBM and Gov. Andrew Cuomo reached a deal to maintain 3,100 high-tech jobs in the Hudson Valley and surrounding areas through 2016. The deal was part of IBM's expansion in Buffalo to create 500 jobs at a $55 million high-tech hub.